painful and hung around with associations,nlike the cobwebs in a room whosenoccupant left many years ago.” His fictionnderives from his experience; henspeaks of a restlessness “which hasnnever been quite allayed: a desire to bena spectator of history, history in whichnI found I was concerned myself.”nGreene’s vision of a corrupted humanitynwill never comfort the romancersnand sentimentalists who dominatenmodern fiction, criticism and educa­nThe Costs of SurvivalnJack Eisner: The Survivor; WilliamnMorrow & Co.; New York.nby Will Morriseyn((TnJ-fCarn to be silent”—so Elie Wieselnadvises those who would speak of thenHolocaust. Especially those who werennot there:nIn intellectual, or pseudo-intellectualncircles, in New York and elsewherentoo, no cocktail party can really bencalled a success unless Auschwitz,nsooner or later figures in the discussion.nExcellent remedy for boredom.n,. .*nThe Jews, he observes, died becausenthey had no friends, and even friendsnshould not judge one another untilnshared circumstance teaches them understanding.nSavants’ chatter camouflagesntheir secret indifference alongnwith their ignorance.nWiesel knows that “the only onesnwho were, who still are, fully consciousnof their share of responsibility for thendead are those who were saved.” Here,nresponsibility means guilt—not the un-n*Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time, Holt,nRinehart & Winston, New York 1968.nMr. Morrisey is associate editor ofnInterpretation: A Journal of PoliticalnPhilosophy.nm^m^mi^mmm^nChronicles of Cttlturention, nor will his technical masterynsatisfy the jaded tastes of a critical establishmentndeeply infatuated with eccentricnstyle and philosophical banality.nBut if Greene as a historian sees then20th century as an age without faithnand permeated by the cheap, the violent,nthe corrupt—if indeed it is “Greeneland”—henwill only reply, perhaps wearily,n”Greeneland perhaps; I can only saynit is the land in which I have passednmuch of my life.” Dnreasoning guilt of one tormented by hisnown survival, but the all-too-reasonablenguilt of one who remembers the termsnof survival. The nazis’ death quota,nthat engine of arbitrary selection, seemsna triumph of collectivism, a perfect expressionnof indifference to the individualitynof the victims. But the quotanforced another excruciating individualitynupon the survivors:n… the one who had been spared,nabove all during the selections, couldnnot repress his first spontaneous reflexnof joy. A moment, a week, or anneternity later, this joy weighted withnfear and anxiety will turn into guilt.n/ am happy to have escaped death becomesnequivalent to admitting: / amnglad that someone else went innmy place.nSome of those who admitted this triednto forget the dead. Others joined themnin death. Still others initiated a silentnmonologue, continued to this day,n”which only the dead deserve to hear.”nWhat is this monologue.” Those ofnus who ask risk becoming cocktail-partyncognoscenti, pretenders to understanding.nYet we should ask, I think; we maynnot deserve to hear the monologue, butnif we do not hear o/it, if we do not facenthe memories of the Holocaust, ournsilence will begin with tact and endnwith the cowardice tact may conceal.nJack Eisner calls his memoir ThennnSurvivor. He knows the silent monologuenof which Wiesel speaks. After thenwar he spent much time “with othernsurvivors.” “We understood one another’snsilences.” Did they.” Surely theynunderstood each other’s need for silence,nbut I doubt that all these monologuesnwith the dead were alike. Both Wieselnand Eisner call themselves gravestones,nmarkers commemorating the dead. Butnthey are different men with differentnthings to say to us—whatever they saynto the dead.nGuilt enters Eisner’s monologue tonus, like Wiesel’s. Not as Wiesel’s.nI am one in a thousand who survived.nWhy me.” Was I better than the halfnmillion Jews in Warsaw who did not.’nEisner tells us how he survived. Althoughnin this passage he means to denynhis superiority to the dead, his memoirnshows us in what ways he was “better”nthan many of those who died, why henwas a better survivor. Acts concernnhim more than thoughts. Wiesel, whoncares much for thoughts and less fornaction, tortures himself with the question,n”Why did you not resist?” Eisnerndid resist, did act, at times with a prudencenthat Wiesel might find profoundlyndisconcerting. These two men couldnnot say the same things to the dead anynmore than they can say the same thingsnto us. Guilt touches them differently.nTo Eisner, thought undirected towardnacts weakens the thinker. “Mynfather was a dreamer, a philosopher, angentle man.” “He believed in the goodnessnof humanity” and “had faith in ancivilized Germany.” “I loved and respectednhim, but sometimes I wished henwere a more forceful man.” The meansnby which 13-year-old Jack Eisner mightnhave begun a life of the mind disintegratednby the grace of the nazis; in 1939nthey destroyed the Warsaw Music Conservatory,nwhich had awarded him anscholarship. After that, his thoughtsnserved action and his acts served survival.nAction, in this circumstance, requiredncourage first of all. “I knew thatn